


Entropic Flame

by JanuaryBlue



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), Character Study, F/M, Other, Subtly toxic mindsets, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Very vague smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:40:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23355592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryBlue/pseuds/JanuaryBlue
Summary: Some people are like the sun. They can shine all on their own, and can even give their warmth and life to others.Others are like the moon. Their radiance is borrowed; reflected.Igeyorhm knows where she stands.
Relationships: Igeyorhm/Lahabrea (Final Fantasy XIV), Igeyorhm/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch, Implied Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Lahabrea
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	Entropic Flame

Lahabrea is like the sun.

He shines, he radiates, _emits._ Lahabrea is a wellspring that remains full, overflowing, in perpetuity. Always giving. Always Creating.

Even before, this was so. It was more so, even.

Once, he could have brought life to an entire world. Faces lit up when he walked into the classroom. Students and scholars alike enlightened by his very presence. His words illuminating vast caverns of unexplored knowledge, his every design and postulation allowing access to the furthest reaches of myriad fields.

Once, his voice which growled and sneered would hum in smooth tones of Socratic inquiry, lips that only ever smirked would lift in the delightful tilt of merriment – only to deny such a thing, moments later.

Once, Lahabrea had been brilliant. 

Now he is reduced to a guttering candle. Sputtering away, not a tenth the speaker he once was, and yet still gifting the people of this world knowledge, understanding. Passing on the wonders of Creation to others, and by his grace do they call forth higher powers as he once did.

Like moonlight reflected, their comprehension is false, but sufficient. Enough for a pale, fragmented shadow of true glory.

But a portion of that same glory, nonetheless. A true image. Such is the effect the great master of Creation has on all he meets, the wisdom the speaker weaves into unworthy minds, too weak and feeble to grasp success on their own, let alone grant power to another as he does.

Next to him, she is made painfully, excruciatingly aware of her sundered status. Fragmented, lesser. Melting at the touch of a greater flame.

Only by his design does she have any place here at all. Even the opportunity to further damn or redeem herself – to serve Him – is a privilege that she has seized despite the painful awareness of her failure. One he offers her without a second thought, seeing potential within her as he always sees in others.

Seemingly ignorant of its origins, he places faith in pale reflections; in his pride Nabriales had seen and condemned it.

As though it were beneath him to _learn._ As though he had been born knowing the secrets of aether and Creation; truly, it was a presumption that boggled the mind. For all that Lahabrea had imparted upon him, he seemed to resent the man all the more. Resent being forced to pass on the knowledge of Creation during his recovery.

She knows what they all think of him, of course. Nabriales, Emet-Selch – even Elidibus in his cool diplomacy. Lahabrea is… _unique._ Singular among them, prone to monologues and rambling that borders on nonsense, gloating and eager to engage, be it with friend (or rather, tools), or foe.

The speaker is a bit much, is he not? Always on the move, always lecturing, always serving one plan or another or concocting a new one. Impatient and brash, unwilling to give anything less than his upmost in any endeavor.

Lahabrea is too much, they say. Talks too much, has too much to say, thinking too much, endlessly spinning in place, perpetually driven. One stray idea or word will have him rambling or ranting. Too stubborn to let anything go. Chasing after every single hint of promise.

He will burn himself out like this, the others say. Elidibus, Emet-Selch, who both know him better. He’s too much, he’s trying to be too much, and it’s killing him. All his efforts, all his energy – if he continues to treat himself like this, it will surely all be wasted.

Igeyorhm wishes she could be too much. Lahabrea will meet his end in the heart of an inferno, and for her? She will be lucky to fade away, forgotten, her only legacy a useless void of a world that had been ruined by her competence.

Of them all, only she has erred so greatly; only she has yet any admiration for Lahabrea.

Nabriales does not care. He rejoined _his_ world, wielded magics yet more powerful than even some of the unsundered – and still, his status holds him back, even more so his deadly pride and obsession with superiority.

Perhaps Nabriales, too, had been like the sun, once.

Lahabrea, who bore responsibility for six of the seven Ardors – forced to retire only once, as Emet-Selch rose Allag – sees her disgrace and offers her a place in his plans, to make amends. He is not afraid of failure. He is not interested in ruminating on past mistakes and sweeps hers aside as though they are nothing as soon as he is satisfied they will not be repeated.

If Lahabrea is the sun, then she, Igeyorhm knows, is the moon.

Lahabrea is not there.

Arms pull her tight, wrapping around her, pressing the gilding of his robes into hers.

Metal that bites into soft fabric, just barely not painful.

The name that devours his lips is not hers. It does not need to be. Igeyorhm knows this and lets him whisper it to her skin, her mouth, between her legs and in her _soul._

Claws digging in, his pitch heightening as she feels his aether swell, simmer, and then reduce and withdraw in mute disappointment. Neither his release nor hers affords either of them any pleasure.

Her color, the Angel of Truth tells her, is much like another’s was, once.

At least she knows this stranger’s name.

She does forget herself, in those whispers like prayers. In that suffusing aether so much greater and so much _more_ –

He allows her this much. It’s not what she had been like, having been whole, by herself, but she will ask for no more and neither would he give it to her. They are alike, mayhap too much so; no parts of her are empty that he can fill, and so in turn, she is unable to complete him.

Where he is dry and pessimistic, she is likewise cynical. He hides behind the mask of Emet-Selch, baring his face; she clings to Igeyorhm, baring her brand.

He builds up civilizations for their fall in full confidence of their insufficiency, watching with some strange hope against hope that he might learn aught from them. She guides the Heritor of Frost and the peoples of Ishgard to their goals, knowing full well the doom they mean to bring upon themselves and yet wondering still if they might avert it.

(Lahabrea hints to her in theory – with strength of soul, of the Gift, a vessel strong enough might survive the process of summoning. It is not unlike what became of Elidibus –

The speaker stopped in his tracks and said no more. Nevertheless, she passes this to the woman who would summon Shiva, and by sunlight twice reflected, she lives and withdraws, as Lahabrea predicted she could.

She lives another day, to summon again, to rise up in the chorus calling for bloodshed. Igeyorhm knows Emet-Selch’s disappointment well.)

Where the others speak of Zodiark, of the Ardor and the Dark, she and he speak to the mortals of their fears. To their hopes and dreams, the things they hold dear. And as _always,_ the mortals fail; selfish, weak, _wanting._

Any faith entrusted in them is misplaced. Any endeavor which depends on them, doomed to fail. And _still_ she and Emet-Selch deign to walk among them, to see what they are capable of, watch their growth and measure their worth.

Naught comes of it. Naught ever comes of it; only failure and bitterness and further despair. He withdraws into himself, sleeps as much as Lahabrea and Elidibus and the guilt will allow him. Gazes upon the Underworld in that one gift unique to him.

As though he might reclaim some of that long-lost splendor merely by _looking._

She knows he has not Created in millennia, instead gazing on the Underworld, reminiscing of the era long past. He has not told her, but she knows still, for she, too, abstains, despite the circumstances. The art of Creation was not meant for what they do. Who they are.

Emet-Selch and Igeyorhm have not practiced Creation since the Sundering.

Since Zodiark was summoned, Lahabrea has not _stopped_ Creating. He yet studies the creatures and life of this sundered world, Creates monsters and beasts alike. Living things always. Creatures drenched in magic with fantastical traits and abilities.

From what she knows, Emet-Selch had favored buildings. Streets and walkways, lamps and intricate little aetherological devices which could reveal the glow of the Underworld to even the plainest of sight. When she had been whole she had been fascinated with snowflakes and weather and she had watched the sky for nights on end.

They Created nothing that could have ever come into its own.

Not unlike the moon. Its pitiful radiance entirely borrowed. A disturbing relic of ancient shame against the natural order. The depressing reminder of sundered worlds and forgotten knowledge. Best suited to the shadows, to lies and subtle manipulations.

They are unworthy of Creation. Ones such as they have no right to reclaim the semblances of the past. Not as they are now.

Still, when he asks her to call him _Hades,_ she complies.

-

Lahabrea is burning out.

Of this Emet-Selch is well aware. He knows it and accepts it. No force in all of creation could ever stop the man from being what he is.

A walking disaster. A passionate professor. A curious scholar.

A star, burning too brightly for too long with too little reprieve.

In Amaurot, it was acceptable. The duties of the Convocation ask for no more than could be delivered – until those final, fateful days – and as soon as one showed signs of faltering, the issue was addressed.

He still remembers it. Days spent accidentally sleeping in the library. Study sessions attended by himself and those who were not yet his old friends, led by a man not yet named Lahabrea but with a clear passion that would eventually see him replacing the very professor he assisted.

Hades still remembers it. He does not even have the strength to wish he could forget, anymore. The suffering comes and he bears it, takes it on his shoulders and lets it weigh him down, a familiar pain and ache.

He is not sure what he would do without it, anymore. It is killing Lahabrea. He knows it is killing him, Elidibus _must_ know – perhaps it kills him, too.

Nabriales looks like he is thriving, but anyone with eyes that can see can tell the man is losing all sense of restraint, losing _himself_ in ways he does not even realize. Prideful and expectant, the man will surely seize any perceived opportunity to _prove_ himself – be it to his colleagues or his god – and in doing so, take further, foolish risks. Bring about his own destruction.

It is killing Igeyorhm, too. Slowly picking her apart, twisting her on herself and drowning her in the tides of bitterness and despair until she is subsumed completely. Her perception of herself and everyone around her warped by the flood.

This is worse for them, he thinks, sometimes. Lahabrea is killing himself, slowly, painfully, passionately, as always. Elidibus is lost, but he had been long since long ago. He himself merely suffers. But the sundered ones? They cannot even remember the world they are meant to restore.

It is why, when Igeyorhm comes to him in her disgrace he takes her in. Takes her under his wing, into himself, and takes his pleasure in turn, if only to make her feel useful. He gives her what he can of himself, paltry though it may be in these trying times.

Loneliness is no crime. The desire to alleviate one’s pain is only natural. What’s a tryst or two or twelve, stolen between worlds over these long millennia, when his lost love is surely rutting and siring and bearing children for these sundered creatures?

She is not _truly_ a replacement. Far too dark a shade to be convincing, too much violet, not enough blue. But Igeyorhm is driven, she thinks of those around her nigh constantly and works ceaselessly to further the course of action she deems ideal. Not at all unlike the one whose name he calls.

They are traits normally desirable; ones that become destructive as she allows them to consume her. Allows him to consume her. It is certain that the others feel the same – even Zodiark feels this longing, the innate need for all to be set _right,_ to be _whole_ again – and how can she be blamed for wanting it?

Igeyorhm will surely fail in her endeavors, believing as she does that she is caught up in his orbit. Believing that she can find what she seeks if only she can understand him. To prove it to herself, she will follow him even to his self-destruction. 

Lahabrea could never love her like this. He does not love her like this, either, but Hades is sure that he does love her, in his way.

As he loves Lahabrea and Elidibus – and even Nabriales, who does not understand the need for camaraderie in the least. It is a small and faded love, from days where words like ‘friend’ and ‘care’ and ‘community’ stood far above the drivel he spouts now to the masses.

But he can feel in her soul, plain as day, a thing like love she has for Lahabrea. He blinds her, overwhelms her vision, distracts her with splendor not one thousandth of what it was, once.

A small mercy for the sundered, then. Whatever she sees in him has more to do with her own misgivings than who the speaker has become, now.

She is more alike to him than she could ever realize, and yet mourns for these imagined differences.

Lahabrea remains ignorant of it all, continuing regardless. He sees an opportunity, _any_ opportunity, and seizes it at once, as if his staying still would stop the world from turning as well.

And mayhap, for him, it will. There is nothing in the speaker but spite anymore, and a strange exhaustion not unlike his own that torments him instead of draining. Anywhere would be better than this fragmented world, so painfully unlike what it should be, and yet Lahabrea is so terribly loath to so much as sleep.

It's as if he considers taking any amount of rest to be an abandonment of his duties. No doubt he is of the opinion that he and he alone is responsible for the state of the world, that he owes it to their people’s memory to enact this plan, and that no part of himself, nothing is sacred anymore.

Be it his knowledge of Creation, his love for the craft and the teaching of it, his soul or even his mind –

After what he asked of Amaurot for the sake of his grand design, after what he asked of _Elidibus,_ and what became of it, nothing is too great a sacrifice. Lahabrea will abandon even himself if it means what was lost can be restored.

He is but another instrument of their salvation – as he failed to be, so long ago. Lahabrea, he knows, would never dream of being more. Would not even consider it. Even when their great work is complete, there is no telling what will become of him.

Where he is weighed down as molten ash, Igeyorhm bursts forth, unfettered, determined, light as a biting breeze and cool as ice, of razor precision and directed intent. To be lesser is to have less to lose, so much to gain. To have never known the world in its fullness, and thusly go untouched by true despair.

How brilliant he must be, to eyes that had never seen him as he was. How hotly he must burn, how _cold_ and _small_ she must feel beside him, as she is.

And all of it is for naught. Whole though he may be, Lahabrea is broken all the same, and Igeyorhm (as she is) is broken, too, to overlook it. He is dying out, has been dying out, for longer than she knows.

These smoldering flames will consume her, and she will count herself fortunate to have been the fuel.

He has naught left in him but pity. Zodiark alone can help them now.

-

Lahabrea failed.

This assessment strikes him swiftly and accurately. Completed as soon as the blade of light meets his aethereal form.

Failed. Failed and cast out, his soul finally too weak to even cling to this host, barely cohesive at all.

Bitter, painful, _familiar_ hatred lances through him, bites at the wounds and the worn edges of his soul, eating away at him like acid. His fault, for underestimating his opponent. So much planning and maneuvering and effort wasted. He must needs start all over again.

Less and less he has of himself; all for the sake of this Ardor.

Soon he will have nothing left at all.

He teaches but they do not learn. He empowers but they are weak. He tells but no one knows, no one _understands,_ these fragmented beings do not grasp it _at all._ Every plan he spins comes to fruition through mortal greed and foolishness.

Invariably, it is the mortals he works with who turn out the most selfish and wicked. His opponents are always the just ones, those who mean to defend the weak and protect the masses. Noble and good and _self-sacrificing_ –

Where those he imparts his art of Creation unto sow only further and further chaos.

Anathema. An utter contradiction, a violation of every precept and value he yet holds dear with might as faded as his. Anyone can be taught. There are no poor students, only failed teachers.

And he has failed, again and again. As long as he continues – he cannot but continue – he cannot teach even one. Black masked apprentices eagerly drink in his knowledge. Swear their souls to the cause of a people they had never known. So easily do they abandon all compassion for their fellow man and all attachments to their former life.

To this cause they set aside everything else and devote the entirety of their being. Just like him.

Somehow, his every endeavor with these most promising of pupils feels like another failure.

He does right by them. As he can. Feeds them words they consume as if starved, fervent devotees who know naught but the desire for further understanding of magics and the workings of the world.

Striding forth to gloat of their knowledge thoughtlessly. Brandishing their newfound prowess and control with the same relish they show in serving their master. Further and further they partake of ancient knowledge until their loyalty is bound beyond question.

Eventually even the hunger for knowledge is consumed by the need to serve Him.

Igeyorhm and Nabriales – and even Emet-Selch, or star forbid _Elidibus_ – all of them are preferable to these near sycophantic husks. Their scorn is well-earned, and sooner would he be loathed for the truth than loved under false pretenses.

Not that they could ever understand. Nabriales hates him and hates him and hates him all the more, and to what end? He knows already he has failed. One would think, being a master of time, Nabriales would not be so wont to waste it.

Emet-Selch might be the most that’s left of them all, hollowed out and tired and bitter as he is. He remembers still. He must. This is the reason, Lahabrea knows, that he longs so dearly for sleep, and if he can pursue the Ardor while Emet-Selch dreams of home – all the better.

They do not listen, not he and Elidibus. They tell him to rest. To stop. Who will take care of the apprentices? Who will raise one faction against the other, teach them to summon – to _Create –_ and gather them the means to do so?

After some time, they do stop. Once in a while, Elidibus will insist, and there can be no refusing him.

He’d do anything, anything at all, to not have to look at him. The mask his friend had worn. The emissary had always worn either a blank face or a gentle smile but it’s empty now in a way Emet-Selch can’t bring himself to realize, which he cannot be blamed for, but he overlooks, no less.

And with his eyes – unthinkable. But he would still take any of them over his own apprentices who he had taught himself. Laughable. A failure of the highest degree.

But he does right by them – as he must – trains them and assigns them tasks and ensures their need to serve, to feel _useful,_ is fulfilled.

A failure as thorough as he has no place condemning others. And despite it all, they are his apprentices. His students. Blindly and loyally obeying, following him in all things.

Their trust in him is the only pure thing left.

He thinks it kills him, Lahabrea does.

It’s not enough. Not fast enough. He will have to survive like this.

Unacceptable. Greater effort needs must be put forth.

By himself, and by others, it is an ardor indeed. From one failed plan to the next he does not stop, does not halt. Not at Nabriales’s disdain, at Elidibus’s silent disapproval – if it is disapproval at all, and not simply disappointment – nor at Emet-Selch’s pithy parting words.

It is hardly a secret. How little they think of him, how they all scorn what he has become. How they know, instinctively – he could have been _better –_ he **should have been better** –

When Igeyorhm comes to him, she is every bit the Martyr. Fearless in the face of the flames. Willing to give herself up to the pyre for the first cause she can find.

Like oil and water, he knows that they cannot become one. They can at best amalgamate – form into a twisted combination of each of their respective consciousness, draw upon the individual powers and knowledge of either partner.

Half one and half the other, fire and ice appearing individually and simultaneously, instead of forming a new being entirely. 

Lahabrea knows this will not work, but he will try all the same.

-

Lahabrea is the sun, unsundered, unabated. She is the moon. A failure, fragmented, a pale reflection of former glory.

Rumination serves no purpose. If she is a failure, then that is what she is; the truth is to be accepted and analyzed, so that she might adapt and overcome this trial.

Lahabrea is like the sun. Like Astral Fire, like the chaotic and all-encompassing power of Dark.

Through his power may she be _changed._


End file.
